PRIX EUROPA BERLIN 2003
RADIO DRAMA
My Kinda Place
Fanny Tzurakova
BULGARIAN NATIONAL RADIO
DRAMA DEPARTMENT
Translated by Lyubov Kostova
Directed by Nikolay Lambrev
Edited by Ina Vulchanova
Sound Temenuzhka Marinova, Dimitar Vassilev
First broadcast 3.11.2002
Duration 51.00 min.
Cast:
Young Man - Nikolay Kostadinov
Hoop - Ilija Dobrev
Professor - Valcho Kamarashev
Bartender Engineer - Miroslav Kossev
Undertaker - Nikolay Antonov
Lawyer - Nikolay Lambrev
Man with mastika - Kiril Efremov
Polly - Ina Vulchanova
______
VOICE: Radio Drama presents THUNDER ROLLS
MUSIC
Man's inner voice: Sometimes I think that I can get out of all this and not have a worry in the world. Have money and not worry... All I need to do is get the money, enough of it. I know I will always make it as long as I don’t let go, as long as I keep calm and emotionless. Ill make it this time too, as long as I stay focused. I put on a shirt, my coat... and I am emotionless... to rule one must have no emotions. I put on the shirt, the coat and am... THUNDER
MUSIC
RAIN
VOICE: My Kinda Place, a play by Fanny Tzurakova.
The noise of a small space filled with many people drinking.
Engineer: Here are your vodkas, Undertaker!
Client: Polly, Polly, do you know why we call him Undertaker? Because he
writes verses for obituaries.
Man's inner voice: (30-year-old, cold, quick, though often suddenly loosing
self-confidence) The flats in these buildings are at 400 dollars per square
meter! (with envy) Three or four floors, gardens, near the park...
A small pub. He's got a license for the basement of a resident building! It isn’t
registered properly. He wouldn't be able to get his money back. A meeting place
for the local drunkards - they can't afford the flashy places. But they don't give
up living in a flashy neighbourhood!
Great basement!... I wont drink, III just take a look at the old guys. If s down the left corridor. A sign saying My Kinda Place. Some name! On card! The type they use in packing shirts! (slight hesitation) I won't drink hard stuff! Man: A glass of wine! Engineer: We don’t offer soft drinks!
Client: Last year there was, there was a bottle last year, at St. Dimitar's Day. A bottle of red wine, from Melnik.
Engineer: (offended) We don’t offer soft drinks!
Man with mastika: Nah, someone had forgotten it... Man: (seemingly relieved) Cognac...
Man's inner voice: I shouldn’t drink. Man: A single shot.
Client: They also forgot a sausage-
Engineer: The single shots here are 100 millilitres each.
Man: Fine... I only recently moved to this neighbourhood... My wife is seeing this guy... so I am renting a place... in the neighbourhood...
Engineer: (taps the measuring glass) One lev. And no fighting!
Client: Polly finished the wine! It was when Polly had cut on drinking so she had wine... mixed with some water. Ask the Professor. Professor! (his voice drowns as he walks away from the bar).
Professor: As if I care!
Man's inner voice: The owner doesn’t pay for a license and gets illegal booze. Otherwise he cant make it - not with his prices and this turnover!
VOICES OFF
Engineer: You owe me two mastikas!
Man with mastika: Write them down on my slab!
Engineer: You and your the slab - might as well turn out as thick
as "War and Peace".
Professor: Come on, enough arguing...
Engineer: I'm fed up...
Hoop: (70 years old, chain-smoker) Basketball today has nothing to do with the
game of forty years ago! The tricks of the Americans - get someone who can
barely walk but is tall enough to stoop down and drop the ball straight into the
hoop - well, that’s no sport anymore! Downright business...
Man with mastika: Come on, Hoop, leave the kid alone.
Hoop: The final blow, that's what basketball's all about., they've replaced the
philosophy now, the Americans did!
MUSIC
Man's inner voice: Widower - wears both wedding rings. Missing button on
the trousers. Drinks vodka. More than one.
Man with mastika: His wife left him and all you can do is fill his head with
basketball...
Hoop: If s the feast them Americans replaced! Trust me, Hoop's telling you!
Client: So why do you always watch their games?!
MUSIC
RAIN
Man's inner voice: His shirt is old. He must have lost weight He doesn’t eat
too well. He hasn't got new eye glasses in quite a while. He can barely see, he
gropes around with his hand when he leaves his glass.
Client: Polly, young man, if s her who finished the red wine. Former movie
actress. She played... 40 years ago... Do you know Polly?
Man: No.
Hoop: Hey, young man!
Man: Yes?
Hoop: I'll be going before the news at eight. I come here for a drink at noon
and for a couple more at half past five. For the past ten years! Drop m one of
these days, whenever you have time. Just take a seat and wait for Hoop. And
when I come I will tell you all about the decisive strike! This thing with the
women, that’s nothing.
MUSIC
Hoop: Nothing at all. Not even the most beautiful one! Nothing to compare to
playing the ball along with four other guys and when you're under the basket
you make the decisive strike! There cant be a woman to compare to that! Or a
dog! I used to hunt, that too is nowhere close to the last ball in the hoop!
Totally plastering them!
Second Client: And for the past ten months now there's been no wine...
Man with mastika: Why don't you go home to have wine? Otherwise have
mastika like us normal people!
MUSIC
VOICES OFF
Professor: Shut up!
Undertaker: Where are you off to. Hoop?!
Man with mastika: He watches the news.
Client: 111 go home if I decide!
Man with mastika: In Knyajevo, dose to the tramstop there's
this Shahovo place - the greatest pub of all times!
Undertaker: Shalyapin used to drink there!
Client: And a pub like that has gone bankrupt!
Man with mastika: Buy me a drink, III get money tomorrow
and buy you one!
Client: Even the communists didn’t do that - let a pub like that go
bankrupt!
MUSIC
THUNDER
WIND
MUSIC
Hoop: Hey, lawyer! Where’ve you been all this time?!
Man: Working... Shall I buy you a vodka, Hoop?
Hoop: Later, the Professor will buy me one first Before his daughter's come to
take him home... Take me home?! That can't happen to me! I don’t regret not
having children! Not at all! They're only good to hold me accountable for what
and when...
Hey, lawyer, leave your bag on the floor, nobody's gonna take it... He had a
stroke, the Professor, so that’s why she comes to collect him home, make sure
he wont drink!... Bull! Control!
Man: There's papers from one of my cases in there. That's why I am holding on
to it, but III leave it here, at my feet...
Hoop: Even if you forgot it tire Engineer will return it in the morning. He always
does.
Man: My hankie seems to be in there... (undoes the lock) Ah, the vodka! A
client gave it to me and why did I put it in my bag, if s so heavy...
Hoop: (spontaneously, excited) Finlandia!
Man: Yeah, someone gave it to me today.
Hoop: My favourite vodka!
Man: Then have it! I don't drink vodka.
Hoop: My best favourite!...(ironically) You don't drink... your soul's all
bottlenecked...
Man: Have it!
VOICES OFF
Man with mastika: That nail you're pounding in, Engineer, it's
gonna fall out again!
Client: Hey, take this piece of foil from my cigarette box, insert it
in there, that'll hold!
Engineer: "Foil! The hydro-engineer that I am and you want me
working with foil!
Hoop: (panicked) No! Don’t take it out! They'll see it! Man: I don’t want it!
VOICES OFF
Undertaker: Just watch that, the shelf will fall on top of him
again, hell go to the hospital to get stitched up and the pub’ll be
closed again!
Professor: The Engineer is totally pissed today!
Client: Last time that shelf fell on top of him he closed this place
and I had to go drink with complete strangers! Not a single soul I
knew!
Hoop: (in panic) Don’t take the vodka out! (he realizes what to do) Come to my place! I’ll leave now and wait for you in the alley leading to the left-hand side building. You should leave three minutes after me! Not sooner! Close that bag! And lock it properly with the lock!
Man's inner voice: Hoop has this single, worn out, probably never ironed shirt. He probably eats canned food from Social care.
Clearing between the buildings. Wind.
Hoop: So you're here, right, Lawyer?! If s over there -1 live in the next
building! Ill lead. You watch your step.
Man: Why don’t I just give you the bottle of vodka and then you can go back.
Hoop: (after a moment of hesitation) No, no! If s not because of the vodka that
I invited you! If s noisy at the Engineer's place -1 had no problem with that
before, but now I get tired...
Man: Want me to hold you by the arm if you cant see?
Hoop: No! I called the power supply company to fix the street light! That was a
year ago! My wife was the only one who could deal with clerks... She was
prettier than anyone else in the neighbourhood! (beat)
Did you see the Professor? The small guy, with the paralysis, he's half
paralyzed, he sits at the table by the door. I've beaten him three times over my
wife! That was before she married me. We used to live next-door with him. And
later they built the residence complex (a door opens noisily, the wind cannot be
heard as much any more, click as the light in the hall is switched on). There's no
elevator.
Man: Careful!
Hoop: I don’t need an elevator! I wouldn't have used it even if we had one!
Man: Was your building built in the seventies?
Hoop: Seventy-third - we moved in during the autumn
Man's inner voice: Building terrain owners were unfairly compensated in the
seventies. The apartment is unlikely to be large. But ifs built well.
MUSIC
The two men's footsteps halt; a dog barks, unlocking of a door.
Hoop: Julius Caesar!
The barking becomes louder.
Man: Is it Chinese breed?
Hoop: Pekinese! The bravest dog! The living room - go there! Hang your jacket
here! The bulb is gone, I'll switch the light on in the living room. Ill bring the
glasses.
Clock.
Hoop: He's small but you'd be surprised - the Professor can take quite a lot of beating! I beat him up three times but I still didn’t cure him of his lust! My wife was a head taller than him, a real beauty, but the one-sixty that he is, he still wont give up!
Clock
Man's inner voice: Stinks of filth. An old dog! It’d better make sure it doesn’t
rub against my trousers! They cost me a hundred dollars! The bedroom's to the
left. The flat must be 60 or 65 square meters in total. There's no attic - this is
the last floor.
Hoop: I washed the glasses. I used to have a woman come in and clean, but
she started to charge too much! Ill find a replacement!
Man: Well drink the Finlandia, why did you brink this bottle?
Hoop: Just in case! (coughs, pours)
Hoop: Mine you can flit to the top!
Man's inner voice: I won't drink too much.
Hoop: There's fish too! I buy this great canned fish! (he goes out)
MUSIC
Man's inner voice: Oak parquet, wont need repair. Some cleaning and varnishing and it’ll be fine for years.
Hoop: (he's back, sits) This can I opened for lunch. Its excellent sprat! Take a fork, help yourself! (slams his glass down on the table) See the three sport cups on the book cabinet - they're mine! And where do you think I have had the best vodka ever?
MUSIC
Man's inner voice: The kitchen balcony runs all the way to the living room, must be six meters or so. It is hardly too wide, but it is surely long.
Hoop: Norway! The best vodka is in Norway! You can trust Hoop!
Man: So how long did you play with the national team?
Hoop: (drinks) Once... Once. And I had to guard Black Bim! I froze! I admit! You'd have frozen too! The greatest English attacker ever! Two meters tall, black, a hundred kilos, fast! And I froze! (he drinks) I never so much as saw the national team again! There was this psychologist... he hated me... Come on, pour us some more!
MUSIC
Man: I don’t want more. Just a bit…
Hoop: I froze... But I continued to travel with my own team! In those days by traveling you could make a fair amount out of selling - there were the tape recorders and short-wave radios, clothes of all sorts -1 had money in each pocket! You ask the Professor when he comes in a while!... You won't tell them that you've brought Finlandia! As soon as they ring the bell we put away the Finlandia and drink this one - the Bulgarian stuff! For two-fifty.
CLOCK
Man: He doesn’t know I brought Finlandia!
Hoop: Oh yes, he does! He suspects! I didn't finish my drink! I didn’t stay for him to buy me one and we had an agreement with him! Hell put two and two together and realize I’ve gone elsewhere! The light’s on at home, he's sent someone to check so he knows exactly what I'm up to! (he hits the table with his fist) I am taking care of my health and this is the scrap I get into! And hell come with two others! He can't climb the stairs on his own. He needs at least two to carry him upstairs. One's probably going to be Todor, perhaps Polly too! She's on the search for a husband again! Four of us. A hundred and fifty grams each. Huh! There goes the entire bottle! I knew at the door that I'd made a mistake! But I had already left my glass - at his table, and I even said “bye"! (bangs the album shut) III put away the Finlandia! Ill just pour us another and put it away! If I take my time when they ring at the door hell know! (opens the bottle and pours into his glass) And if he has even the slightest suspicion, hell never leave before we’ve finished this bottle so that I'd then have to take out the other one. (He pours) What he likes most is that flicker of suspicion in his heart, just so he has something to investigate! Totally insane!
MUSIC
Man's inner voice: I'm not even tipsy yet, might as well drink some more.
Man: Just a bit for me.
Hoop: If s the period the Professor's going through now - the drinking spree. After that hell find something crazy to hold on to and he'll go back to pure water, (he drinks) If he isn’t drinking then he must be up to something?
MUSIC
Man's inner voice: Hoop's switched the heating off. He's probably paying just
for the kitchen and bathroom.
Man: You don't seem to have any problems with leaks here, even though
you're last floor?
Hoop: (insisting, sober) You're not a drunk?... Not yet!
Man: We’ve got plenty of them in the family! (it slipped his mouth, he tries to
make it sound milder) I don't feel like drinking... today.
Hoop: So you want something, right?... From me?!
Man: Yes.
MUSIC
Man: I've inherited some money, not too much, but I'm thinking of investing in
real estate. I don't need a place to live now. I have my own apartment If s just an investment. I’ve got nine thousand and I'm looking for something at half price. I buy it at half price and you live in your own apartment to the end of
your days.
Hoop: Nine thousand dollars.
Man: They make deals like this all the time... We're the only ones who leave everything to our nephew and nieces... the ones we haven’t even met!
Hoop: (thinking) Nine thousand dollars.
Man's inner voice: His 18-years worth of pension, but he has to calculate that himself! He's playing the aristocrat!
Hoop: AH right! (he slams his fist down onto the table) But with my notary!
Man: No problem. Cheers!
MUSIC.
Several people are coming up the stairs. They are excited, chatting heatedly, a woman laughs, the same laughter we heard in the beginning.
Professor: It was the whiskey, he wouldn't have left his vodka! So Ifs either
original Russian or Finnish or Swedish!
Man: Hey there!
Professor: Are you leaving?! Is Hoop alone upstairs?!
Man: He wanted to show me a picture of his wife, that’s why I went upstairs.
We had a drink but now I really have to go.
Professor: OK, so well see you some other time.